


Parallax

by silkinsilence



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Canon Autistic Character, F/F, Fluff, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Miscommunication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-10
Updated: 2016-10-10
Packaged: 2018-08-20 13:16:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8250428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silkinsilence/pseuds/silkinsilence
Summary: First-time blues are bad enough without a whole base gossiping about your love life.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I don't actually know what this is, but I like it. 
> 
> I wrote a fair amount of this in class and am too lazy to edit, so I apologize in advance for any typos, weird wording, or potential computer science-y interludes. There shouldn't be too many. Hopefully.
> 
> Also, Widow and Gabriel are here, because...?
> 
> Listen, Widow, Satya, and Hanzo being friends and judging everyone and complaining about their respective SOs is very important to me.

Fareeha almost can't believe it's really happening.

Satya is soft and burning hot under her tongue and hands. Her thighs flex and clench around Fareeha's head; her hands are tangled in her hair, long and perfectly-manicured nails scratching not unpleasantly against her scalp. She's very quiet, but then she's _always_ fairly quiet. Her breath is hitching, anyway, and her golden eyes are heavily-lidded when Fareeha glances up.

She smells and tastes like heaven. It is evening at the Watchpoint and a breeze is coming through the windows and Fareeha is dining alone, but not alone at all. Satya is real. This is real. This is happening, and she couldn't be happier.

"—nough."

Fareeha's attention turns upward again. " **يا قمر**?"

"That will do," Satya says evenly, smiling down at her. Her hands gently, mindlessly stroke Fareeha's hair, no longer scratching and demanding. She rearranges the silk of her dress to cover herself once more, prim and orderly despite the sheen of sweat on her skin and the lack of underwear on her damp thighs.

"I...what?" Fareeha sits back on her knees. "Did you...?" She lets her voice trail away. Normally it wouldn't be embarrassing to say such a thing out loud, but suddenly everything is awkward. Her hands are too big, her words too uncomfortable in her mouth. She is very aware of her mussed hair sticking to her sweaty forehead.

"Did I what?" Satya echoes. She tilts her head. Her expression is even and unassuming, like she really doesn't know what's being asked. Fareeha isn't entirely convinced, but her courage is rapidly fleeing her.

"Never mind. Uh, are you all right?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" Satya sits up and tries out her muscles, rolling out her shoulders and arching her back. She's beautiful. She's beautiful when she runs an impatient hand through her hair to push it out of her face, when she stretches as nimbly as a cat. "I'm going to shower."

"Okay," Fareeha says uncertainly. She watches Satya cross the room to fetch her bathrobe from the closet. She slides it onto her shoulders, retrieves the caddy containing her toiletries, and disappears behind the door without another glance at her bewildered lover.

When she's alone, Fareeha flops back down onto the sheets and stares up at the ceiling, trying to figure out what she did wrong. It had been going so well. Satya had been so receptive, asking for and acquiescing to all her caresses. When Fareeha first slid her head down between Satya's thighs, the architech's eyes had been pools of amber, pupils blown huge by lust.

Is Fareeha _that_ out of practice?

The sheets are very comfortable, if slightly damp. She reassures herself that if anything was really wrong, Satya would tell her. She'll come back from the shower, and they'll cuddle a bit, and maybe Fareeha will be allowed to stay the night. Overall, they're still looking at a net positive.

She stands, stretches out her own slightly-sore muscles, and walks circles around the room. She fetches Satya's panties from the floor and places them carefully in the basket of dirty clothes. Her own shirt she hangs over the back of a chair, more comfortable to remain in her bra. The lace and silk are foreign against her skin; she's not used to wearing anything more fancy than a sports bra.

With nothing else to clean up—the room is spotless as ever—she lies back down on the bed. She likes Satya's room. The dorms are all somewhat spartan, a challenge that Overwatch's various agents rise to differently. Fareeha's military background has left her mostly indifferent to living in such quarters; Jesse's room is filled with a mess that does an effective job of filling the space; Hana's is crowded with stuffed animals to soften the hard edges.

But Satya's is perhaps the most livable of them all. Fareeha supposes the ability to make one's own furniture comes in handy. The color scheme, white and soft blue, calls to mind Satya's arm, or perhaps her turrets.

_"Is blue your favorite color?" Fareeha asked the first time she saw the room._

_"Yes," Satya responded, running her fingers absently over the soft material of one curtain. "Light blue. I've always liked it...though darker shades have been growing on me lately." She looked over her shoulder and smiled a little._

_"Oh, yeah? Why?" Fareeha, oblivious, asked._

_"Someone close to me wears royal blue into battle," Satya said. Her hand ghosted over Fareeha's cheek, somehow both expressive and restrained. "It suits her."_

Satya takes a long time in the shower, which is typical for her. Fareeha's communicator beeps every now and again: Jesse trying to round up people for a card game, Angela reminding her of her upcoming checkup, Gabriel inviting her to competition on the target range. She ignores the first two and responds to the third that she's free tomorrow morning, and then she just lies there and watches the sky get darker outside the window.

The soft click of the door announces her girlfriend's return. Satya looks the same, swathed in her robe, except that now her hair is dark and shining wet. She looks surprised to see Fareeha there. The expression is enough to awaken all her worries once more.

"You're still here," Satya says. She can't know how much those three words hurt.

"Yes?" Fareeha's missing something. She has to be missing something. She feels like an idiot, sitting on the bed in her bra and her pants, absolutely at a loss.

"I think it would be best if you left." Satya won't meet her eyes. "Please," she adds as an afterthought.

The _please_ is enough that Fareeha probably wouldn't argue even if she had the faintest idea what to argue about. She nods, gets up, retrieves her shirt from the chair and pulls it on. All the while Satya stands by the door like a statue.

 "I'll see you tomorrow?" She hopes it doesn't sound like the plea that it is.

Satya nods. "Good evening."

Then Fareeha is out the door, and it closes behind her.

She spends a solid thirty seconds standing there, staring at the chipped white paint and the contrasting elegant holographic nameplate reading _Agent Satya Vaswani._ Fareeha is at a complete loss. She doesn't know if she's ever felt so foolish in her life, desperately wondering _what just happened._

There's the sound of a door slamming shut behind her. Fareeha spins on her heel, but she can't tell which of the other dorms it was. She doesn't want to think about someone watching her stand there, clueless and lost. With any luck, it will have been Bastion, who can certainly be counted on to keep a secret, or perhaps Hanzo, who doesn't interfere with things that don't concern him.

Fareeha's never had _great_ luck.

* * *

"Guess what _I_ saw last night?"

It is much too early and her mood much too dour for Hana's energy, particularly when said energy is augmented by energy drinks and a lack of sleep.

"What did you see last night, Hana?" Satya asks, resigned. She pays no attention to the girl eagerly twirling on the stool next to her. Her focus is all for the carefully dismantled pieces of her photon projector. If she _was_ looking at Hana, she would have seen the foxlike smirk adorning her face.

"I saw Fareeha taking the walk of shame."

Satya slams her hand down onto the table with more force than intended. She does not want to talk about this, not now, not ever.

"Hana." The tone of voice really should be warning enough, but Hana is clearly too eager to pay mind to such cues.

"Soooo? Tell me about it."

"There is nothing to tell."

"You're so obviously lying."

"I am not."

"Whenever you lie, you clench your fists, 'cause it's hard for you."

Satya looks down. Her hands are drawn into fists on the tabletop. Damn it.

"It was not the walk of shame. The walk of shame refers to a walk made the morning _after_...sexual activities." That is probably saying too much, but the urge to correct the inconsistency is too strong to resist.

"So there _were_ sexual activities?" If Hana leans forward any further, she is going to fall off the stool, and Satya will not help her up. Well, she will, but not before feeling smug about it.

"Hana, I really don't want to talk about it." She runs her right hand over the smooth planes of her left arm, comforting herself, grounding herself.

This time, her tone seems to come through. In an instant Hana sits back, no longer pushing, instead contrite.

"Oh. I'm sorry. I didn't want to upset you."

Satya sighs. "I'm not—upset."

Hana makes a noise that suggests she's skeptical, but she doesn't push any further. Instead she flops forward to rest her arms and head on the desk.

"Did you get any sleep at all last night?" Satya asks.

"Not supposed to," Hana mumbles into her elbow, her voice muffled but just audible enough that Satya can make out the words. "Someone came up with this energy formula, and Angela bribed me into testing it."

"'Someone?'" Satya repeats dubiously.

"Winston, I think? Or her? I don't _know._ " Her voice trails off into a groan. Satya fights to suppress a smile.

"I take it it's not going well. How did she bribe you?"

"Tell me about you and Fareeha. Secret for a secret."

Satya quite wants to know the answer, but more than that she wants to keep her own hidden. She shakes her head.

"Shouldn't you be used to staying up all night? You told me you had a stream at four AM last week."

"You might find this hard to believe," Hana says, throwing her head back to let out an enormous yawn, "but I always get my eight hours. At weird times, maybe, but I can take care of myself."

"If you're having that much trouble, why don't you simply go to sleep and tell Doctor Ziegler that the formula isn't effective?" Satya's attention is only half-focused on the conversation now. She is more interested in the pieces and notes in front of her. The specifications for upgrading her projector need a good deal of concentration.

"It's not that it's not _working._ I'm not sleepy, I'm just—jittery. Like my mind wants to go to sleep but my body is really awake, or the other way around. Besides, what she promised me is _pre-tty_ good."

"Well, I can't promise to keep you good company." Satya begins the delicate process of pulling and shaping light from her left hand. Hana watches as if transfixed, blue light reflecting in her tired eyes. "Why don't you join Lena and Winston on their morning run?"

"Uh, FYI, I was going to, but Rein was there." Hana pulls a face. "You ever seen him in running shorts? God, that alone makes me want to run to Talon for brainwashing."

Satya can't keep from smiling at that, even if the mental image is more than a little disturbing for her as well. Even if it impedes her focus, it is good to have Hana here, keeping her from brooding, keeping her from thinking too much about the night before.

The two of them sit in relative silence for a while, Satya making steady progress on her upgrades, Hana playing some game on her phone and making occasional noises of glee or frustration. The sun creeps higher in the sky, and the sounds of the base's various inhabitants waking and going about their days filter into the laboratory.

Shortly before eleven, Lúcio pops his head into the laboratory, inviting Hana to a skate around the base, and she springs up, eager at the prospect of more invigorating activity. She glances over her shoulder, giving Satya a look.

"Will you be okay?"

"Of course. I'm fine." Satya doesn't know whether to be insulted or touched at the question.

Hana considers for a few more moments, then leans in, speaking quietly enough that Lúcio, by the door, can't hear.

"She wasn't _that_ bad, was she?"

"Out!" Satya jumps up and tries to ignore the blood rushing to her cheeks.

Hana, unrepentant and cackling, obeys.

Alone at her table once more, Satya cannot help but let her mind linger on the question. No, Fareeha hadn't been that bad. Fareeha hadn't been bad at all. It was all Satya.

It was the discomfort of inexperience, the same terror that accompanied her in attempting anything new. It was what she had imagined, what she had fantasized about, finally catching up with the real thing. More simply, it had been _too much._ Fareeha's touch was incredible until it was agonizing, until even the simple sensation of the sheets against her skin was unbearable.

Satya wanted to keep going. Fareeha had been so eager. It was far-fetched to Satya that anyone would offer so willingly to perform a task that, despite her fantasies, still seemed slightly repulsive. But there Fareeha was, offering, her lips and tongue _warm_ and _gentle—_

What could Satya do but assent? And she told herself she just needed to bear it out, suppress her nerves and her mind alike. She tried, tried the best she possibly could up until the moment when she physically couldn't take it any longer.

Fareeha's confusion, so evident. The shower, finishing herself with her own practiced fingers, warm water purging her senses.

She ruined it. It was the best thing she has ever had with another person, and she has ruined it.

Now is not the time to think of it. She stares down at the pieces, old and new, and slots them together. It is over, and that is that. She cannot dwell on it when it is her own fault. It was surely only a matter of time, anyway, for her to do something that would drive Fareeha away. It is better for it to happen sooner rather than later.

It is better, Satya tells herself, thinking of a warm hand on hers and the rumble of machinery wrapped around her as the ground falls away. It is better, she tells herself, as her vision clouds and the first drop of salt water lands on a pristine white component.

**يا قمر.**

* * *

It doesn't take Fareeha very long to realize two important things about the incident the night before: one, that _everyone_ knows about it; and two, that something has gone very, very wrong with Satya.

The first she realizes at lunch, from which Satya is conspicuously absent. She wasn't in her room that morning when Fareeha tried knocking, though a quick inquiry to Athena confirms that Agent Symmetra is still in the Gibraltar base and in good health. The AI's privacy filters won't let her tell Fareeha exactly where Satya is, which leaves her grumbling and with no choice but to go about her routine as normal. Still, her morning exercises aren't as fun without Satya standing in the window to watch. Zarya gives her a friendly punch and congratulates her when she completes a set. At the time, this makes little sense, as her performance was rather worse than usual, but later she realizes that Zarya must have known as well.

She meets with Gabriel on the practice range and spends the better part of an hour pushing herself to match him. He trounces her at short-range, but she can pull her weight from a distance. When they finish, he gruffly tells her that she's a force to be reckoned with. The compliment suffuses her with warmth even as she's distantly occupied with worries of her romantic life.

But it's at lunch that Jesse claps her on the back and tells her that he's heard things are going well with her and Satya, and he's happy for her.

Fareeha grabs his metal hand before he can draw it back and spins to face him. He looks surprised by this turn of events and probably more so by the look on her face as she pins him against the counter.

"Jesse McCree. What do you _know_?"

He tries to bite back the wolfish grin, but they've known each other much too long for her not to recognize that expression even before it's fully formed.

"Hana may've mentioned something."

Fareeha mutters a few choice words under her breath at that. Of everybody on the base, _of course_ it would be Hana who ends up with this information. It's time to assume she's dealing with a worst-case scenario and that everybody else on the base knows too. _How_ doesn't matter. And, frankly, if it was just Fareeha, she wouldn't really care. But she knows that Satya _does_ care, that the architech likes her personal information in as few hands as possible.

Fareeha's mouth goes dry as she realizes that _everybody_ includes her mother. Her mother knows what she and Satya did last night.

She's already decided to ask Winston to ship her out on a mission that afternoon when logic catches up to fear and she remembers that Ana's currently in China with Jack.

Her mother undoubtedly _will_ find out, but that's a bridge that can be crossed when it has to be. It's a modicum of relief not to have to cross it now.

"You gonna let me go, or--?"

Fareeha realizes she still has Jesse pinned. She takes her hands off him, a little reluctantly, and he straightens his shirt and keeps grinning.

"Just promise me I can be best man at the weddin'."

"Another word and Angela won't be able to piece you together after I'm done with you," she promises, though the words lack any real force. Indeed, she can feel a smile welling up to curve her lips. The confusion of the previous night feels very much in the past. Here and now, she's lingering on the word _wedding,_ imagining Satya draped in gold and painted with henna.

_Shit._

It takes Fareeha, in her opinion, an unforgivably long time to realize the second thing. Her various texts to her girlfriend throughout the day have gone unanswered, but that's not an unusual occurrence; Satya hates being surprised by a ringtone, so she keeps her communicator silenced at all times, and as a consequence sometimes it takes hours to realize she even has messages. No, it's only when the architech fails to make an appearance at dinner that Fareeha begins to worry.

"She's probably tired," Hana drawls, a completely evil smirk painting her face. "Too much people-time."

"Shall I find her?" Genji offers, pausing from shoveling bratkartoffeln courtesy of Reinhardt into his mouth.

"If she wishes to be alone, it is her prerogative," Hanzo says stiffly. For a moment the disagreement, even one as slight as this, causes tension to hang in the air between the brothers.

Reinhardt breaks it. "Satya is capable of looking after herself. Perhaps she simply needs a respite from gossip."

His tone is gentle, but Hana looks chastised, her grin disappearing as she slides down in her seat.

After dinner, it occurs to Fareeha to check the lab. There's no sign of Satya there, though Fareeha pauses by her workstation just to look at it. There is the familiar container of kinetic sand, the stress ball shaped like a pink bunny head, a gift from Hana. Satya's pens are all lined up. The papers of whatever she was last working on are sitting in a neat pile.

There is a new addition to the desktop—a small hard-light falcon, all white planes and shining blue joints. Fareeha lifts it to inspect it and notices the tattoo under its right eye.

Her heart catches in her throat.

After a few seconds of turning it over in her fingers, she puts it back exactly as she found it and heads for the door. Athena's lab logs indicate that Satya signed out not ten minutes ago. Fareeha curses herself for not thinking of coming sooner.

Her annoyance is short-lived. As she heads back to her room for the Maghrib, she hears the gentle click of heels on the floor and rounds a corner to see the person she's been seeking all day.

"Satya!"

The architech turns. Her eyes are wide. She looks Fareeha up and down and shifts backward a little, her arms coming up to wrap around herself.

Fareeha recognizes these motions. But having them directed at her _hurts._

"Good evening."

"Where have you been all day? I was kind of worried."

"I have been busy," Satya says. Her tone is clipped. Fareeha is rapidly finding herself more and more confused once more.

"Have you eaten? Do you want me to make you some tea?"

Satya's eyebrows come together briefly in a confused little v. She tilts her head to one side and looks at Fareeha as if trying to see through her.

"I do not think that would be a good idea," she says slowly.

"Oh. Okay." Fareeha shifts. She is very aware of herself, how she is standing, what she is wearing. Is this still about last night? Why won't Satya just _talk_ to her? "Look, did I do something wrong?"

Satya has those deer-in-the-headlights eyes again. "No. Why would you think that?"

The answer to that question is so obvious that Fareeha doesn't know how to begin to answer it, which is a mistake, because the next minute Satya is sweeping past her and continuing down the hall toward her room.

For the second time in as many days, Fareeha is left standing, absolutely befuddled, outside the door.

That night sees her in the rec room, sprawled on the couch with Jesse. She tries, mostly successfully, to ignore the twinge of guilt and the thought of what her mother would say if she saw her drinking. But the bourbon is nice, warming her stomach and clouding her thoughts. She has a dim memory from the old Overwatch, seeing beer passed around a party and finally convincing Gabriel to let her take a sip from his bottle.

Ana found out, of course.

"I feel like an idiot, Jesse. Like, was it something I did? God, am I really that bad?" She digs her knuckles into her eyes and blinks away the stars that appear.

"Naw, that can't be it. You're not bad at anything. Out of practice, maybe, but not bad."

She glares; he grins.

"Then what's your explanation?"

"Maybe she's just got hangups about sex. Some people're like that, y'know."

It's a possibility. Fareeha considers. But Satya had seemed to be fine about _starting._ It was only in the middle that things got weird.

"Or maybe she's just not into cuddlin'. Maybe she's going to be cold and weird to you for days now, only to deny she's actin' strange, and you'll drive yourself up a wall tryin' to figure out what's goin' on between the two of you." Jesse grimaces and takes a too-large gulp from his glass. The brown liquor sloshes over the edge and runs down his chin. "Dammit."

Fareeha laughs at the disgruntled look on his face. "Someone sounds like he's speaking from experience."

"Who? Me? Nope. All smooth sailin' over here. Besides, we're talkin' about _your_ problems."

"I just need to talk to her, but she won't talk. Even if I could get her alone, I don't think she would say there's anything wrong. How am I supposed to know what's going on if she won't _tell_ me?"

"Try askin' her friends. Try askin' Hana."

Fareeha shakes her head and sighs. "I don't think she tells _anyone_ how she feels."

"I thought she told you."

Pain manages to permeate the pleasant haze of alcohol.

"I thought she did, too."

* * *

 

As quickly as everybody on base heard about Satya and Fareeha's evening tryst, so too does the news spread that the relationship is having difficulties. The second morning, Satya has barely entered the mess hall for breakfast—at an hour when she knows Fareeha will be otherwise occupied—than she is accosted by Lena, all big dark eyes and concerned voice.

"What happened between you two? You doing all right, luv?"

Satya stutters some mindless answer that almost certainly doesn't make sense, too startled to calibrate her mind with her mouth. She leaves Lena standing in the kitchen and goes to sit down, only to be joined by Reinhardt, whose immense girth shakes the table when he sits.

"Please know that you will always have a confidant in me," he says seriously. The intent is good, but Satya has no interest whatsoever in taking him up on that offer, particularly at nine in the morning over her idlis and with various of their teammates sitting at the tables around them.

The last straw is McCree ambling up to her in the hallway and telling her she really should talk to Fareeha. She snaps, hackles up, and intends to spend the rest of the day (or week, or month, or however long this takes to roll over) hidden in her room, before she remembers she's booked time on the target range.

Her shooting partner, luckily, is taciturn enough that she barely even greets Satya, let alone mentions the gossip sweeping Gibraltar. Amélie already has the targets set up and an impatient hand stroking the barrel of her rifle.

"You're late," she says, looking Satya up and down with a raised brow.

"My apologies," she returns curtly. She fetches her pistol from its locker. It has been long enough now that it no longer feels alien and uncomfortable in her grip. She and her fellow agent stand side-by-side, silently and wordlessly dividing the room in half.

Amélie's marks go down first. They always go down first. Satya, though improving, lacks the instinct for aiming and shooting that so many of her peers here have. Her shots are much too careful and measured, a deficiency she'll pay for when they upgrade to moving bots.

It's nice to unload the bullets into the targets. It is a good release of frustration. She thinks of Lena and Reinhardt and McCree and _Fareeha,_ and wishes so badly that she could think of nothing at all, and pulls the trigger harder and harder every time. She is unaware that her lips are moving; she is muttering under her breath, carrying on conversations in her head that she has never had aloud, will never have aloud.

"Satya."

She hits the breaking point. She spins on her heel and turns to face Amélie.

"I do not wish to talk about it. I do not wish to talk about Fareeha. I find the eagerness of everyone on this base to make others' business their own to be deplorable. And to be frank, Amélie, I would have thought you above listening to..."

Her voice trails away as she looks from Amélie's amused smile to her cocked eyebrow and down her arm to her extended finger, which points at a ruined and smoking bot at the other end of the range.

Blood rushes to Satya's face.

"It went down around five shots ago. I take it you're distracted, minette?"

Satya stiffly turns her pistol's safety on and lowers her arm.

"Pardon me."

"Of course." The sniper's tone is silky, teasing. Satya wishes it was Hanzo; surely _he_ wouldn't take such delight in tormenting her. "But as it's obviously bothering you, if you'd _like_ to talk about Captain Amari..."

"Again," Satya interrupts. Her heels clack on the floor as she marches to the control panel to reset the training bots for the next round.

* * *

An unexpected knock on her door rouses Fareeha from her stupor. She's been reading Winston's debriefs on their upcoming missions and finding it hard to concentrate. The last time she had to do this, there was the comforting warmth of another person wrapped in her arms. Maybe she'd paid less attention to the words and more attention to the curves of Satya's hips, but she'd had the architech there to gently chide her and tell her what she'd missed. The debriefings were much more interesting when Satya was murmuring them into her ear than when she was reading off a screen.

But now she's alone, and it's been four days since she's touched Satya. She's at a loss. Frustration colors everything she does.

That same frustration raises its head now at the interruption. Without moving from her bed, she calls, "Unless it's an emergency, I'm not interested."

There is a pause.

"I'm sorry to have bothered you."

The voice is soft and intimately familiar. Fareeha is scrambling off the bed in an instant, barely noticing as her tablet narrowly misses falling onto the floor. She makes it to the door and throws it open in time to catch Satya turning to go.

"It's not a bother. You're not—you could never be a bother."

Satya looks away, biting her lip. She's adorable when she's embarrassed. Fareeha wants to hug her, to take her in her arms and kiss her warm cheeks. A week ago, she would have. Now she resists the impulse and leans against the doorframe as if there is anything casual about what she's feeling.

"May I come in?"

"Yeah, of course." Fareeha moves back to let her in. "Sorry about the mess."

 _Mess_ is relative; her room is still quite barren, but there are dirty clothes lying in a pile on her floor and her bed isn't made. Compared to Satya's fastidious quarters, it's a pigsty.

"There is no need to apologize." With practiced motions quite familiar to Fareeha, Satya forms a stool of hard-light and seats herself gracefully upon it, one leg over the other, like a statue. Fareeha follows suit and seats herself at the desk.

A week ago they would have been together on the bed. The distance is nigh unbearable.

The silence stretches long and thin and agonizing. Fareeha waits and waits, but Satya does not speak. Eventually it becomes clear that she isn't going to.

"What did I do?" Fareeha blurts at last, unable to help herself. Satya looks taken aback. "And don't say nothing again. It has to be something. There has to be a reason."

It takes Satya several moments to speak, but Fareeha can tell she's going to from the minute movements in her lips and eyes. She waits, on edge, impatient.

"It was nothing you did," she says. "It was me."

"Then why have you been avoiding me?"

"I didn't think you would want to see me." And then, quieter, "I was embarrassed."

"Of what?" Fareeha leans forward in her chair, eager to be getting somewhere at last, desperate to hear what comes next.

Satya doesn't deliver. She shakes her head and averts her eyes.

"Can I ask yes-or-no questions?"

That earns her a nod.

"This is about what happened on Sunday night, right?"

A nod.

"Were you embarrassed about—what we did?"

A vehement shake of the head; that relieves some of Fareeha's fears. She wants to ask whether she was really that bad, but she doesn't, because it feels selfish and maybe because she's scared of the answer.

"Did it make you uncomfortable?"

There is a pause this time. Satya can't seem to decide on an answer. Fareeha is trying to think of a way to rephrase the question when the other woman speaks.

"I'd—never done it before." It is difficult for her to say. That much is made obvious by the crack of her voice and the tightness of her hands, still folded over one knee. Her discomfort is made more obvious by her absolute stillness. She is not playing with her hard-light or running her fingers over the hem of her shirt. She is a statue.

 This information doesn't exactly surprise Fareeha, but it seems inconsiderate to say so, so she does not. From what she's learned of Satya's time with Vishkar, interpersonal relationships were hardly a priority there when compared with the workload, to say nothing of the architech's difficulties relating to others.

Fareeha doesn't care about that, except in its relevance to understanding the woman she loves.

"It was overwhelming," Satya finishes. No elaboration is forthcoming, but suddenly Fareeha doesn't think she needs one.

"You went into sensory overload?"

Nod.

Fareeha wants to laugh or sob. She really wants to hug Satya. "Why didn't you say something?"

There are tears glinting in the corners of Satya's eyes. "I didn't—you were so accommodating. I was flattered. I wanted to try for you."

" **يا قمر** ," Fareeha breathes. She holds out her arms in invitation. Satya hesitates only a moment before standing, vanishing her stool with a wave of her hand, and accepting the offer. She is warm and soft and sweet-smelling in Fareeha's arms. She fits like she belongs there. Fareeha tangles fingers in her hair and scratches against her scalp. Her other hand gently wipes away the unshed tears from the corners of those brilliant golden eyes. "I want _you._ Just as you are. And I want you to enjoy it, not just pretend to for my sake."

Satya buries her head in Fareeha's chest. The chair is not big enough for the two of them, but it might as well be the most comfortable seat in the world for all Fareeha cares. Finally the world makes sense again. Things are as they should be.

"I cannot promise it won't happen again."

Fareeha chuckles. "It would be unfair of me to ask anything else. But next time, please tell me."

"Don't you mean," Satya says, voice half-muffled, "un- _Pharah_?"

Fareeha laughs so hard that she almost jostles Satya from her place on her lap. It seems a good moment to relocate them to the bed. She lifts Satya gently, bridal-style. Before she even settles onto the sheets, there are arms around her neck and lips on her own.

The kiss makes up for the dearth of touches over the past handful of days. Satya kisses firmly, insistently, with the force of one who knows what she wants. It will never stop being intoxicating.

"I love you," she whispers into Fareeha's ear. It tickles and sends warmth down her spine. They collapse together onto the sheets. Satya straddles Fareeha's hips and settles onto her throne there. Her hands begin the task of undressing her.

"I liked it," Satya says. "What you did to me. I'd like you to do it again."

"Of course," Fareeha breathes immediately. She loves Satya like this, in control and assertive and taking what she wants. "Would you rather go to your room?"

Satya shakes her head. "I like your bed. It smells like you." She looks away, embarrassed. Fareeha pulls her down for another kiss.

"Thank you for talking to me," she murmurs. "I was scared I had lost you."

"There are others you should thank, too," Satya says. "I would not have come without...convincing."

Fareeha looks appraisingly upward. She would like to hear more about that, but it can wait. For now she has much more important things to attend to.

"Are you doing all right?" she asks, as her hands wander and caress beneath her lover's shirt and undergarments.

"Very well," Satya says, a satisfied smile on her face. "Though I do have _tension_ that needs attending to..."

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> On the off-chance you finished this and thought, "I want to read a fic that elaborates on how Satya was convinced and that also deals with Hana's PTSD and survivor's guilt," [then boy do I have good news for you!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9212741)
> 
> Comments always appreciated!


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